I can't speak to all the questions you've raised, especially concerning rate comparisons across platforms. But I'm a recent immigrant to Blackberry Curve, after having a Sidekick since 2003. I'm still with T-mobile. Like you, I had problems with the frequent service interruptions, delays, etc. I use email more than IM (but I did use both), but both have been plagued with service issues, as you are well aware. The questions is: How much of the trouble was due to T-mobile, and how much was Danger? In answer, I have to say that email and IM (Jivetalk) on the BB have worked *very* well, so I have to assume that much/most of the trouble was with Danger, or perhaps the interaction between Danger and T-mo. On my Sidekick (LX), email from my gmail POP account could take anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours to arrive, and the "manual fetch" capability was disabled last May. On my Curve, gmail (without the special gmail application, which I haven't bothered with) arrives just about instantly.
IM sessions on my Sidekick used to be pretty good, a year or so ago, but performance has deteriorated, and there has been more and more lag, with occasional spells of good performance. Jivetalk IM performance has been as fast as on my PC.
Again, I don't know the costs of the different plans, but as a longtime Sidekick user I can say that the performance of my Curve on T-mobile seems much better than what I'd been getting with my Sidekick for quite a while. I hope this is helpful.
|